Sen. Tom Coburn’s list of wasteful spending misses the mark on Nevada

Sam Morris

Road worrier: Sen. Tom Coburn calls the Las Vegas Beltway beautification project a waste of money. Is he right?

Tovin Lapan

Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012 | 2:54 p.m.

In his report “Wastebook 2011: A Guide to Some of the Most Wasteful and Low Priority Government Spending of 2011,” Sen. Tom Coburn swings his fiscal watchdog hatchet at a Las Vegas Beltway beautification project, a Henderson “tree census” and an exhibit at the Western Folklife Center in Elko, home of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.

The beautification projects along the Las Vegas Beltway, one at Eastern Ave. and one at Flamingo Road, which cost taxpayers approximately $690,000, were managed by Clark County and paid for through the Federal Surface Transportation Enhancement Fund, which mandates that the money be used mostly for aesthetic improvements. Clark County provided matching funds, and the Nevada Department of Transportation distributed the money and vetted the applications from Nevada’s local agencies.

“It’s kind of ironic that the rules are set up by Congress, and here’s a senator criticizing what we have to abide by,” NDOT spokesman Scott Magruder says.

As for a $60,000 grant through the American Investment and Recovery Act to pay for a “tree survey and inventory” in Henderson, Kim Becker, communications and marketing director for Henderson Parks and Recreation, said the money is not for simply “counting trees.” “An unmanaged urban forest can lead to costly infrastructure repairs, public safety hazards and perhaps unmitigated liabilities,” Becker says.

And the $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for the Western Folklife Center in Elko represents less than 2.6 percent of the center’s budget, according to Executive Director Charlie Seemann. “The vast majority of funding for the work of the center comes from private foundations, businesses and individual donors,” he says.